Touch sensitivity can vary. Having a sense of control and an amenable mental state can make significant difference. Being touched unexpectedly, especially when one is already overstimulated, can be horrendous. But while the intense blow-ups over innocuous unwanted sensations are most memorable, autists can have as many strong positive preferences as negative. If you’re curious about touch at all, a lw meetup seems like a good place to explore on your own terms: it’s got a norm of asking for touch verbally instead of by mysterious social cues (a chance to say no most casual touch doesn’t give), explicit consensus on its purpose and meaning (because touch itself might be pleasant, no accidentally starting a mating ritual), and a built-in excuse for why you might find it uncomfortable and off-putting (it IS weird, by other social standards).
a lw meetup seems like a good place to explore on your own terms: it’s got a norm of asking for touch verbally instead of by mysterious social cues
People who want to be asked for physical touch likely won’t opt for the “free hugs” sticker which a majority did at LWCW-EU. It means opting in to being touched unexpectedly.
Picking that sticker is not an act that I would expect from a person with real autism.
NT girl wants to show her affection to her boyfriend. She comes up behind him and gives him a hug. He stiffens and pushes her away. She is bewildered, confused, and sad. Why doesn’t he want her hug?
Behavior like that happens with autism.
I used to have a roommate with autism and I don’t think he would have picked a free-hugs sticker.
explicit consensus on its purpose and meaning (because touch itself might be pleasant, no accidentally starting a mating ritual)
There are many different purposes for touch besides mating and I don’t think it’s always communicated explicitly.
In a debugging session I might use touch to direct attention, gather information or affect an emotional process.
If it’s informal sitting on the couch the purpose can also be bonding or pleasure in the moment.
Right.. Verbally was too narrow a term. The free hugs sticker seems perfectly in line, actually. If there’s an explicit option to opt-in, then there’s an implicit option to opt OUT. Just having the option to opt out that makes it feel a whole lot safer to let people into your personal space.
Some autistic conventions have gone with a system of colored badges: a green badge means that the person is actively seeking communication; they have trouble initiating, but want to be approached by people. A yellow badge means they might approach strangers to talk, but unless you have already met the person face-to-face, you should not approach them to talk. A red badge means that the person probably does not want to talk to anyone, or only wants to talk to a few people.
The quote about the hug is an exceedingly typical narrative, in the sense that it’s a narrative written in a very typical way. There’s no context for her boyfriend’s mental state, what he was doing or what kind of day he’s had so far. How do I describe how huge an oversight that is? The only comparison I can think of is to sex, because people acknowledge the way abusing such an intense experience can wreak havoc on your mind.
What if people around you thought it was normal and okay to force sex on you at any moment, and more so that you were being difficult or uncaring if you rejected a bit of harmless surprise sex? If every meeting might escalate too-much-too-fast, if you were left breathless and raw multiple times a day with no time to recuperate or make sense of it? It would be easy to decide that you point-blank hated sex. You know that your reactions are completely out of proportion by any normal standard, but the confusion and terror just keep building until you want nothing to do with sex. You make excuses where you can and think of England when you can’t. You try to keep iron control over which people have sex with you and when. You find sexual variations to propose that you like better, or that at least trigger you less. You leave behind many sad, bewildered loved ones as you stumble your way through life.
You find others who seem unusuallydeliberate about sex also. When they talk about its many beneficial and underrated effects, it resonates with your subjective experience that sex is a powerful, intense thing. It occurs to you that you do share mostly the same brain chemistry as the rest of the human race, and there’s a good chance that you will like and benefit from sex if you can break down your averse reaction to it. Might as well try it, eh?
Having stickers about whether one is open to be approached is a quite different level to having stickers about hugging.
The quote about the hug is an exceedingly typical narrative, in the sense that it’s a narrative written in a very typical way. There’s no context for her boyfriend’s mental state, what he was doing or what kind of day he’s had so far. How do I describe how huge an oversight that is?
If a person had a bad day, hugging them to comfort them is a normal social action. If I have a good relationship with a person than I don’t have a problem with them touching me regardless of my current emotional state.
Hugging isn’t unrelated to the mental state, in a way that involving a grieving person in sex would be.
On the other hand it can break a walls that shield the grieving person from his grief. There’s more vulnerability.
In general I expect that the resulting reaction of an autists person when hugged gives out information about him being generally uncomfortable with getting hugged.
It might be that I’m badly calibrated because I didn’t interact with enough people who I know to be diagnosed with autism, but I wouldn’t expect the kind of physical interaction I had with many people at LWCW to happen if those people are autistic.
Touch sensitivity can vary. Having a sense of control and an amenable mental state can make significant difference. Being touched unexpectedly, especially when one is already overstimulated, can be horrendous. But while the intense blow-ups over innocuous unwanted sensations are most memorable, autists can have as many strong positive preferences as negative. If you’re curious about touch at all, a lw meetup seems like a good place to explore on your own terms: it’s got a norm of asking for touch verbally instead of by mysterious social cues (a chance to say no most casual touch doesn’t give), explicit consensus on its purpose and meaning (because touch itself might be pleasant, no accidentally starting a mating ritual), and a built-in excuse for why you might find it uncomfortable and off-putting (it IS weird, by other social standards).
People who want to be asked for physical touch likely won’t opt for the “free hugs” sticker which a majority did at LWCW-EU. It means opting in to being touched unexpectedly.
Picking that sticker is not an act that I would expect from a person with real autism.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spectrum-solutions/201111/touch-and-the-autism-spectrum contains the paragraph:
Behavior like that happens with autism.
I used to have a roommate with autism and I don’t think he would have picked a free-hugs sticker.
There are many different purposes for touch besides mating and I don’t think it’s always communicated explicitly. In a debugging session I might use touch to direct attention, gather information or affect an emotional process. If it’s informal sitting on the couch the purpose can also be bonding or pleasure in the moment.
Right.. Verbally was too narrow a term. The free hugs sticker seems perfectly in line, actually. If there’s an explicit option to opt-in, then there’s an implicit option to opt OUT. Just having the option to opt out that makes it feel a whole lot safer to let people into your personal space.
Some autistic conventions have gone with a system of colored badges: a green badge means that the person is actively seeking communication; they have trouble initiating, but want to be approached by people. A yellow badge means they might approach strangers to talk, but unless you have already met the person face-to-face, you should not approach them to talk. A red badge means that the person probably does not want to talk to anyone, or only wants to talk to a few people.
The quote about the hug is an exceedingly typical narrative, in the sense that it’s a narrative written in a very typical way. There’s no context for her boyfriend’s mental state, what he was doing or what kind of day he’s had so far. How do I describe how huge an oversight that is? The only comparison I can think of is to sex, because people acknowledge the way abusing such an intense experience can wreak havoc on your mind.
What if people around you thought it was normal and okay to force sex on you at any moment, and more so that you were being difficult or uncaring if you rejected a bit of harmless surprise sex? If every meeting might escalate too-much-too-fast, if you were left breathless and raw multiple times a day with no time to recuperate or make sense of it? It would be easy to decide that you point-blank hated sex. You know that your reactions are completely out of proportion by any normal standard, but the confusion and terror just keep building until you want nothing to do with sex. You make excuses where you can and think of England when you can’t. You try to keep iron control over which people have sex with you and when. You find sexual variations to propose that you like better, or that at least trigger you less. You leave behind many sad, bewildered loved ones as you stumble your way through life.
You find others who seem unusually deliberate about sex also. When they talk about its many beneficial and underrated effects, it resonates with your subjective experience that sex is a powerful, intense thing. It occurs to you that you do share mostly the same brain chemistry as the rest of the human race, and there’s a good chance that you will like and benefit from sex if you can break down your averse reaction to it. Might as well try it, eh?
Having stickers about whether one is open to be approached is a quite different level to having stickers about hugging.
If a person had a bad day, hugging them to comfort them is a normal social action. If I have a good relationship with a person than I don’t have a problem with them touching me regardless of my current emotional state.
Hugging isn’t unrelated to the mental state, in a way that involving a grieving person in sex would be. On the other hand it can break a walls that shield the grieving person from his grief. There’s more vulnerability.
In general I expect that the resulting reaction of an autists person when hugged gives out information about him being generally uncomfortable with getting hugged.
It might be that I’m badly calibrated because I didn’t interact with enough people who I know to be diagnosed with autism, but I wouldn’t expect the kind of physical interaction I had with many people at LWCW to happen if those people are autistic.